Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Day 289
“Yet what I mean is not outward ceremony and public demonstration, but rather inward appreciation, lending spiritual form to everyday acts. Its essence is to call attention to the sublime or solemn aspects of living, to rise above the confines of consumption.”(Who is Man pg. 117)
Rabbi Heschel is expanding both our definition of celebration and his and practical experience with the concept of celebrations I believe with his words above. We are so caught up with the outward ceremonies, the public demonstrations of another and/or ourselves that our celebrations are often acts of consumption, acts of entertainment, acts of diversion, acts of distractions. We see this happening when the protests overshadow the injustice being protested, when people are gawking instead of marching, when we deride the people who are demonstrating for justice, for kindness, for truth we are engaging in public demonstrations for the sake of our selves, for the amusement of the crowd, gang, boss, etc. While we are giving lip service to the protestors, while we shake our heads in sadness at the homeless tragedy in our country, most of us are not moved enough to do something about it other than blame the politicians, the homeless themselves, and whomever else we can.
While it is easy to point to the public demonstrations of the charlatans, the deceivers, Rabbi Heschel is speaking to all of us. When we pray in community, are we experiencing an inner appreciation for God, for community, for our soul, for the changes we are making daily to live a little better today than I did yesterday? Are we going to Temple, to Church, to the Mosque to pray for our selfish desires? Are we showing up to be seen and to see another(s)? Do we go to the demonstrations against injustice to be moved or to be seen? Are they performance art to/for us or are they meaningful?
These are the questions that immersing myself in this first sentence are bringing up. Just as with every other era in history, performance art is what is popular, pomp and ceremony is what is seen with reverence and/or derision. Yet, is the popular moving us to appreciation? What value are we putting on the performance art of public demonstrations and outward ceremonies? Do these demonstrations and ceremonies move our inner life, do they change our spiritual nature? Are they moving us closer to being merciful, loving justice, walking in God’s ways? Are we answering the demand and the call to join and make a difference because of these ceremonies, are we touched enough by the demonstrations to support the principles on which they are based?
We see the earnestness of many of the people performing these ceremonies and organizing these demonstrations and, unfortunately, we then see how they are co-opted by the mendacity of another, by the deceptions of the few and by the self-deception of the people themselves. Liz Cheney is an example of what happens when one person takes a stand for truth, for the constitution in today’s climate. Much like many times before, the lone voice of truth gets overwhelmed by the cacophony of the mendacious ones, this voice goes from being on the inside to being cast out and on the outside. Liz Cheney is a hero because she did not sell her soul to get back in. She has spoken truth, she has stood for her principles and beliefs and her outward ceremonies and public demonstrations have engendered appreciation, awe, and spiritual growth to so many of us who only saw her as one-dimensional, just a right-wing conservative, just Dick Cheney’s daughter. We have come to appreciate her strength, her stance for democracy, her belief in the Constitution. When everything was on the line, Liz Cheney’s public persona and her inner life came together to show all of us what lending spiritual form to everyday acts can lead to.
In recovery, we get to show up at meetings with our whole self. We no longer put on different faces, different incarnations of self depending on the situation. What you see is what you get and we are consistently showing up authentically and transparently. While this makes many people uncomfortable because authenticity and transparency is not always pretty, it is not always ‘nice’, it is always seeking truth, jettisoning mendacity and leaving our deceptive selves behind. Is self-deception still present, yes, just tamped down greatly and our transparency and authenticity allow us to be more aware of it rearing up and more open to hear someone else point it out to us.
I have led outward ceremonies that had a degree of performance art to them in order to move people to appreciation and move their inner lives towards “walking humbly with God”. For the most part these ceremonies were successful in helping both the congregation, the people participating and me grow our spiritual life, repair and heal our inner wounds and grow in our appreciation of what life is, what it has in store for us and excited to see what is going to happen next. I did not speak about politics per se, I spoke of the spiritual and moral principles that we, people of faith, have to uphold, stand for and fight for. The questions I ask above are the questions I have been asking myself for 33+ years. Prior to that, much of what I did was for show and I am repulsed by those memories, I hold on to them so I don’t repeat them. gislation, to see how I can help the individual, because we often get lost in the ‘them’. I look for the soul of another because this is the public demonstration that moves me to appreciation and spiritual growth the most. God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark